While the GMU Biodefense students have been finishing their semester work, the GMU Biodefense faculty have been busy too! Below is an update of the latest published work from members of the faculty.
Dr. Trevor Thrall, Director of the Graduate Program in Biodefense, wrote a piece on ISIS’ strategies for U.S. News and World Report.
President Barack Obama declared the latest beheading by the Islamic State group – this one of American aid worker and former Army Ranger Peter Kassig – an act of “pure evil.” But as ugly as the act was, it was also an action taken with a strategic end in mind. The question we should be asking is: To what end? Why has the Islamic State group pursued a strategy of beheading Westerners, and specifically Americans?
The entire article is available here.
Dr. Gregory Koblentz, Deputy Director of the Biodefense Graduate Program, has been writing on nuclear issues including Op-Eds for the LA Times–“How to Keep Future Cold Wars Cold: Mind the Missiles“–and The National Interest–“The Silver Lining of an Extension of the P5+1 Nuclear Talks with Iran”
Since the end of the Cold War, three challenges to strategic stability have emerged. The first is the increasing complexity of deterrence relations among the nuclear weapon states. Whereas the first nuclear age was shaped by the bipolar global ideological and military competition between the United States and Soviet Union, the second nuclear age has been marked by the emergence of a multipolar nuclear order composed of states linked by varying levels of cooperation and conflict. Rising nuclear powers such as China, India and Pakistan are not party to the web of treaties, regimes and relationships that girded strategic stability between the United States and Soviet Union (and now Russia).
Dr. Koblent’z full articles are linked above.
The Pandora Report 